"We tested this theory by showing 2-year-old children pictures of a cartoon rabbit and duck," researcher Caroline Rowland said. "One picture was the rabbit acting on the duck, lifting the duck's leg for example, and the other was an image of the animals acting independently, such as swinging a leg.

"We then played sentences with made-up verbs -- 'the rabbit is glorping the duck' -- over a loudspeaker and asked them to point to the correct picture.

"They picked out the correct image more often than we would expect them to by chance"